Sukothai Bike Ride

The second stop of our trip included a visit to Sukothai and the Sukothai Historical Park. We all rented bicycles for the day and set out on a journey through the park, visiting the various ruins throughout.

Sukothai was the first capital of Thailand centuries ago, and the ruins in the park dated back to the 13^th century. Most of the statues throughout the area were once covered in gold, but most of that has now either deteriorated or been stolen over time.

Getting to see the ruins was pretty spectacular, and getting to do it all from the seat of a bicycle made it even better. Although I don’t remember the last time that I actually took a bicycle ride—do not fret, as the saying that you never forget turned out to be true.

Included between all the Buddha and other religious relics was a statue built to honor a late king of Thailand. This was in fact the weirdest exhibit we had seen; as a woman was present during the visit repaying the king for the blessings he had granted her. As part of her retribution, she was offering the heads of six pigs and whiskey to the king. Come noon, she would then offer the feast to those also visiting the statue as part of her offering, and refusing the food wasn’t an option out of respect… given that it was ten minutes before 12 when we were there, the visit was cut short as we pedaled out of there.

Another aspect of the park was the releasing of animals that was offered as a religious gesture. With this you could release anything from eels, turtle, and fish to mussels and baby birds all bringing various blessings upon their freedom. Seeing the animals trapped in their plastic bags was pretty heart wrenching so we both bought into the trap and paid to release a bag. Undoubtedly, the evil trap lady probably just went and caught the same animals as soon as we departed, and us paying to release only encouraged her to continue doing it but it was really hard to avoid…

After spending the day at the park and getting in our cycle workout for the day, it was back to the hotel for dinner in the town of Sukothai and to prepare for another bus ride—this one only four hours—to the town of Lampang.